I have held the position of Vice-Chancellor at Umeå University since 1 April 2025.
As the most senior manager, I lead the University’s strategic work and am its foremost representative both internally and externally. Among other things, I decide on overall university-wide issues regarding research, education and finance.
I have spent the majority of my academic career at Uppsala University, with breaks for periods at Lund University (2001), the University of York, UK (2003), and the University of California, Santa Cruz (2010). In 2005, I defended my dissertation Vetenskap på gränsen (Science at the Frontier), which deals with behavioural genetics and its explanations for human behaviour. Since my PhD, I have remained interested in questions and research topics that are on the fringes of sociology, but which nevertheless require the lens of social science.
As an academic leader, I have worked on issues related to academic freedom, collegiality and the multifaceted role of universities in society. For example, since 2024, I have chaired Kommittén för demokratins röstbärare (Committee for the Voice of Democracy).
The field of cultural sociology that I work in deals with people’s frames of understanding and behaviour in everyday life. How do people know what to do in different situations? My research includes science and technology studies (STS), medical sociology, urban and housing theory, studies of animal-human relations, as well as studies of waste and circular economy. My research has been published in self-authored books and anthologies and more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. I have also authored scientific reports and many opinion pieces, popular science articles and blogs.
An important interface is that between science and cultural creation, and I have collaborated with artists across a number of projects.
I have received significant amounts of research funding from, among others, the Swedish Research Council, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Riksbank Jubilee Fund), COST, Mistra and Formas, as well as being the founder of the Cultural Matters Group, the Humanimal Studies Group and the research group Waste Values.
Professor in Sociology (2015)
Docent in Sociology (2009)
PhD in Sociology (2005)
Registered Nurse (1994)
In 2007, I received the Katrin Fridjonsdottir prize in the sociology of knowledge as well as the Swedish Sociological Association’s Segerstedt Prize in the same year.
Vice-Chancellor, Umeå University (2025–)
Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Humanities and Social Sciences, Uppsala University (2020-2025)
Deputy Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Uppsala University (2017-2020)
Chairman of the Swedish Sociological Association (2016-2018)